


For Great Justice (Whatever That Is)

by insanityinside



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-13 09:25:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/822709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insanityinside/pseuds/insanityinside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by a picture by simply-irenic. </p>
<p> Javert had resigned from his post in the most definite way imaginable, and yet there he was being offered a job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Man on a Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> A while ago I realised that this fic needs to exist. I couldn't find it, so I decided to try to write it.  
> Why this title?  
> a) Because of the artist's comments for [the picture that inspired me](http://simply-irenic.deviantart.com/art/100-Themes-Drink-34588111).  
> b) Because the main similarity between the characters is their passion bordering on obsession for justice and the main difference is what exactly they mean by 'justice'.  
> c) Because I couldn't think of a non-silly title.

**Prologue**

**A Man on a Bridge**

The night is rainy and rather cold for this time of the year. The streets are quiet and, for the most part, devoid of people. But it hasn’t been this way for long. The tall hooded figure knows this only too well. It has had a very busy day and that day is not quite over yet. Right now it stands by the river, leaning on its scythe, invisible or merely unseen, it is hard to tell. The only person who is there to see it, a man standing on the bridge,  pays it no attention whatsoever, as he stares intently at the water below, lost in thought.

It has to be pointed out that the thought in question is entirely new to him and he has just unexpectedly found himself right in the middle of it without a map. What else could he do? Ask for directions?

It watches him expectantly as he climbs onto the railing. A moment later, unheard by anyone, it swears.

 

***

Meanwhile...

Can such a term even be used in the context of an infinite multiverse? The world has more dimensions than most languages were invented for and, to make matters worse, terms like “here”, “then”, “up” or “later” are a lot more subjective than people tend to think. This is how we end up with times and/or places such as meanwhile in the past or your other left. Reality is messy like that. This is why we can tell stories like this one.

 

***

_Splat._

Not even a proper _splash,_ but a soft, squishy, anticlimactic _splat_ is the last thing he hears. And what the hell is that _smell_? For a moment he panics. He rather hoped there wouldn’t be time to panic. He tries to move, but that only causes him to sink a little bit deeper. His last thought, as the foul-smelling sludge begins to fill his lungs is ‘There goes my last chance to get out of this mess with some dignity.’

 

***

Meanwhile, if such a term can be used in this context, somewhere almost, but not entirely, different, it is also a cold and rainy late spring night. Three vague, gray shapes hover above an empty street, invisible or merely unseen, it is hard to tell. The only person who is there to see them, a man standing on the bridge, pays them no attention whatsoever, as he stares intently at the, for want of a better word, water below. Or rather, at something he has just seen _in_ the water.

And then it moves, and Sam Vimes realises what he is looking at. He reacts quickly. There is still hope.

 

 


	2. A Foreigner in Ankh-Morpork

** Chapter One **

** A Foreigner in Ankh-Morpork **

Javert opened his eyes and immediately squeezed them shut again. The face uncomfortably close to his own brought to mind the word ‘patchwork’. 

“He’th waking up,” said someone with an exaggerated lisp.

Slowly, Javert opened his eyes again. The man had stopped leaning over him, but he was still standing there and still looking as though he had been built out of spare parts.

“Good morning, thur,” said the patchwork man.

“What happened?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said another voice ‘You were found in the Ankh last night.’

Javert looked around. The room appeared to be some sort of mad scientist’s laboratory and, judging by the little windows just below the ceiling, probably located in a basement. It took him a moment to notice the speaker, a very short bearded individual wearing a metal helmet.

“Where am I?”

“Pseudopolis Yard, ” said the dwarf “I’m Sergeant Littlebottom and this is Constable Igor.”

“Anyway,” said Igor “How are you feeling, thur?” 

Javert wasn’t sure how to answer, although a few words did spring to mind immediately. ‘Dirty,’ for one thing. He watched as Littlebottom walked out of the room. Igor seemed to notice this.

“She’th probably gone to get you thome breakfast while I examine you,” he explained.

‘She?’ Javert thought, but there were more urgent things to deal with at the moment.  After about ten minutes, one awkward conversation and narrowly avoiding the use of two strange-looking medical instruments, Littlebottom did, in fact, bring him some breakfast: a plate of fried eggs, a large mug, or possibly small bucket, of black coffee, something that appeared at first glance to be a piece of toast, but he almost broke his teeth trying to bite it and, for some unknown reason, a dead rat. He wasn’t sure when he had last eaten a proper meal. He gratefully accepted the coffee and started to eat the eggs, while carefully ignoring the unfortunate rodent. Over breakfast Igor and Littlebottom asked him some more questions that he didn’t know the answers to and informed him that their boss wanted to speak with him in person. 

“He should be in his office in half an hour,” Littlebottom said “You can wait here or -”

“No,” Javert said standing up “I think I’d rather take a walk.” He looked around the room again. “Where are my boots?”

  


***

  


  
Twenty minutes later Javert was more lost than he had ever been in his life. He was in a city, the city was not the one he had been in yesterday and that was just about all he knew. He also had no coat because, according to Littlebottom, it could not be saved, no hat because whatever force had brought him here seemed to have left it behind and he almost wished he had no boots because the ones he was wearing were full of the foul-smelling sludge that the locals called _Ankh_. More importantly, he had no idea what to do next.  


‘So why not feed that adorable little doggie?’ he thought, just a moment before he actually saw the small, elderly mongrel sitting on the pavement and watching him hopefully. It was pointless, he knew, but he glared at it anyway.

“Woof?” the dog said innocently, wagging its tail.

“Nice try,” Javert replied.

“ _Woof!_ ” the dog insisted “Bark, bark. Whine. And also, woof.”

“You’re still talking,” Javert pointed out “and I’m still not going to feed you.” 

“You’re not s’posed to notice!” the dog complained “You’re s’posed to ignore things you’re not expectin’!”

“Well then, I guess that makes it official. I don’t know what to expect any more.”

And that was true. He had no idea. He needed some answers and he didn’t even know the questions. It occurred to him that maybe talking to the Commander wasn’t such a bad idea after all. He had trusted authority for most of his life and this approach had only ever failed him once so far. Of course, that one failure had left him very, very lost, first only metaphorically, and now in a very literal sense as well. But what other options did he have? He sighed and reached into his pocket. 

 

“If I give you this... er... fried rat,” he asked the dog “will you tell me how to get back to Pseudopolis Yard?”

  


***

  


  
There weren’t many people inside Pseudopolis Yard at this time in the morning and Javert still wasn’t convinced some of the creatures counted as people. Where was the Commander’s office? He looked around for someone who could answer the question. 

  
A young man was sitting at a desk in the corner of the hall. Javert approached him and then he realised that something wasn’t right. The _corpse_ of a young man was sitting at a desk in the corner of the hall. It looked up.  


“Yes? How can I help you?”

After the conversation with the dog this shouldn’t really surprise him, should it? It did anyway, but he did his best not to show it. The dead man directed him to the Commander’s office. Hopefully things would begin to make sense soon. 

As he climbed the stairs, he realised that, as if a talking corpse wasn’t bad enough in its own right (And some vague but worrying memories suggested that maybe it shouldn’t be), there had been something eerily familiar about him that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Oh well. He would deal with that later, if it needed dealing with. There were more pressing matters at the moment. He knocked on the door.   
 


	3. A Resignation  is Turned Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the part you all came here for.

**Chapter Two**

**A Resignation  is Turned Down**

Inside the office a scruffy-looking man was sitting behind a messy desk. Javert disliked him instantly. Scruffiness was unprofessional (regardless of the actual profession).  He was, of course, vaguely aware that he himself still smelled of that terrible sludge from last night, but at least he had an excuse and he was _going_ to find out what it was.

“There’s a dead man in the hall,” Javert informed the Commander.

To the man’s credit, he sprang to his feet immediately, dropping his cigar and newspaper onto the desk.

“He told me to come up here,” Javert added.

“And good morning to you too,” the commander said “Do sit down, Mr…?”

If there was one thing about this man that Javert was actually starting to like, it was the suspicious glare that probably made most people dislike him, but for Javert, who had not been on the receiving end of such a glare since that one time when he was twelve years old,(1) it was the one familiar thing in a world that made no sense. It was something to relate to at least.

He introduced himself.

“A foreigner, eh?” the Commander guessed.

“I suppose I must be.  What country are we in?”

“Ankh-Morpork,” the Commander replied. If it was indeed the name of a country, it had to be a strange and exotic one that had, until this morning, seemed too far away to bother thinking about.

“So you’re the man from the river?” said the Commander.

“So it would seem.”

“How did you end up in there?”

“I have no idea,” Javert said “I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know where _here_ is. I have been poked with strange things by a patchwork man, fed a rat by a woman with a beard, had a little chat with a stray dog and been told to come here by a corpse.”

“Igor, _Igor_ , dwarfish cusine, Cheery, Gaspode and Reg,” the Commander guessed effortlessly, as though none of this was news to him.

“And that’s just this morning,” Javert continued “Don’t get me started on the last two days.”

The man behind the desk looked disappointed.

“I was actually hoping you could tell me some more about them,” he said.

“Why should I?” Javert asked cautiously.

“Because I am one of the few people in this town that are willing to help you,” the Commander said “I am Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch,” he introduced himself “A policeman,” he added “You _do_ know what a policeman is, right?”

Recent events had cast a shadow of doubt on this once-unshakeable fact, but some things still needed to be said.

“I rather think I do,” Javert replied “Only, the last time I investigated a murder, interviewing the victim was, sadly, not an option.”

“Are you trying to tell me you’ve been murdered?” Vimes asked.

“No, I… ” Javert hesitated “I _think_ … ” Memories that had been rather blurry for most of the morning now floated to the surface like, well, a corpse in the river. He shook his head. “I was talking about the man downstairs,” he said sharply.

“Right,” said Vimes “So you don’t know how… ” he trailed off. “Wait,” he said “Did you just say you were a copper?”

“Yes, I… ” No, this wasn’t right, was it? “I used to be.”

“Where are you from?” Vimes asked “I know people from all over the Planes.”

“Paris,” said Javert “Most recently, anyway.”

Vimes shrugged.

“Never heard of it,” he said.

What the hell was this place? Surely not even in America could a civilised man be this ignorant? (2) To be fair, Javert himself had never heard of Ankh-Morpork. He drew the only reasonable conclusion.

“I guess it must be very far away,” he said “The strange thing is,” he added thoughtfully “I was only there last night.”

The Commander swore quietly under his breath.

“Is there something wrong?”

“A lot,” said Vimes “I don’t think we can help you get back, for one. Or even understand what just happened. It sounds like wizard stuff.”

There was a moment of silence, while Javert finally realised just how far away he was from everything he knew. Then he spoke.

“I’m not entirely sure I want to go back,” he confessed. He was not particularly keen on staying in a place full of wizards and talking dogs either, but he felt that it was too late to back out now. How could he go back anyway? Return to his life as though  nothing had happened?

“Very well,” said Vimes “Do you have any idea what you’re going to do next?”

“Not yet.”

Vimes wasn’t sure it was a good idea.  The foreigner seemed so confused about everything. Then again, so was Vimes himself whenever he found himself more than a couple of miles away from his hometown. And, even in all this confusion, Javert certainly didn’t seem stupid.

“I think I might have an offer for you,” said Vimes.

“No,” Javert protested “I couldn’t possibly accept it. After all this...”

“After all what?” Vimes asked and this time Javert finally answered.

Vimes listened carefully to the summary of the man’s entire career, a strange tale from a world with no noticeable signs of magic (although the amount of bizarre coincidences almost made up for it). Javert was many things, as far as Vimes could tell. Not all of them good. But he was certainly not incompetent. If anything, he could be a little too efficient if you let him. There was only one thing that Vimes didn’t understand. Well, two, really, but the other one was best left to the wizards.

“That _was_ a tricky one,” he admitted. Some kind of court should have been able to deal with that poor bastard properly, but, of course, there was no way to make sure it would. “But why does it mean you can’t accept the job?”

“Clearly, I have failed,” Javert replied “If you would have known what to do, that only makes it worse.”

“Then what will you do?”

Javert shrugged.

“There must be hundreds of other things I can do,” he said.

‘ _Right_. And that’s why we had to fish you out of the Ankh,’ thought Vimes, who had once said much the same thing in much the same tone. Aloud he said,

“So let me get this straight. You misjudged a man based on one action (and a rather poorly thought out one at that) and, because of that _one mistake_ , you have deemed yourself _unworthy_ of this job?”

Javert said nothing.

“Don’t you see a bit of a contradiction here?”

Sometimes, when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, something has to crack. Javert had resigned from his post in the most definite way imaginable, and yet there he was being offered a job. Perhaps it was time to accept that his resignation had been, just as definitely, turned down?

 

 

(1)    Which, as he would assure anyone brave or foolish enough to ask, had not been his fault.

(2)    Javert has just experienced a traumatic revelation and there may be more awaiting him in the future. We will spare him this one.

 


End file.
